That’s the message behind a new report from Boston College’s Center for Retirement Research, which finds that more than 85 percent of American households will be ready to retire at age 70. It’s an uptick from ages 63 to 64 — the current national averages for retirement — but not the dramatic increase many have feared in the wake of a recession that shrunk investment portfolios and decimated savings.

“This is sort of taking a potshot at various stories you read about in the papers, which have said that people will never be able to retire or will have to work into their 80s,” said Anthony Webb, a research economist at the Center for Retirement Research and one of the study’s authors. “It’s saying don’t take seriously the scare stories.”

The number of households prepared for retirement improves sharply from roughly 30 percent at age 62 — when people are first eligible to claim Social Security benefits — to about 86 percent at age 70, data from the study show. After that, the percentage of prepared households increases marginally for each additional year retirement is delayed.

The steep increase in retirement readiness from ages 62 to 70 reflects the distribution of Social Security benefit payments people can receive during those years.

Though you can begin claiming Social Security benefits as early as age 62, you’re not eligible to receive unreduced monthly payments until reaching what’s known as your “full retirement age.” That means age 65 if you were born in 1937 or earlier, and the age rises incrementally for birth years after 1937, until leveling out at age 67 for people born in 1960 and later. In other words, claim before reaching your full retirement age, and you’ll get reduced monthly benefits. On the flip side, if you don’t begin receiving benefits immediately at your full retirement age, you’ll be eligible for delayed retirement credits, which increase your monthly benefits.

In all these scenarios, people receive roughly the same total Social Security benefits over their lifetimes — lower payments for a longer period of time even out with higher ones in a shorter frame. But Webb says that calculation does not account for the stability and security households get from delaying their claims and receiving a greater monthly payment throughout retirement.

“Leaving aside those who are unemployed or in ill health, if you don’t fall into one of those categories, by working a few years longer the household can get back on track,” Webb said. “Working longer is a sensible strategy for a lot of people. And longer doesn’t mean 85.”

The study also notes that younger households are, on average, less prepared for retirement than older ones. These people face a higher full retirement age and have longer life expectancies (meaning they need additional assets to span that time), but do not appear to be saving more in 401(k) plans compared to their older counterparts.

The study was based on the National Retirement Risk Index, which gauges the portion of Americans that are “at risk” of needing to lower their standards of living during retirement. The index calculates retirement income as financial wealth, pensions, housing, Social Security and defined contribution/401(k) wealth. It does not account for income from work.